Lot 56 Dα

While pure still lifes were less common in Lovis Corinth's early work, they began to appear more frequently and with more variety at the end of the first decade of the 1900s. While Corinth increasingly concentrated on luxuriant floral still lifes in these later years, his earlier compositions often present complex explorations of the kitchen, breakfast and fruit still lifes of the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish nature morte. Usually on a white tablecloth, the painter arranges exotic fruits, meat or luxurious seafoods, such as oysters or lobsters. Not least because of their muted palette, these still lifes sometimes bear the unmistakable stamp of an Old Master-like quality.

Within this context, the markedly closer-up view as well as the vibrant brushstrokes which Lovis Corinth has used to apply this work to the canvas are not merely to be understood as anticipating his unbridled late work.
The tablecloth accentuated with broad brushstrokes, the plate painted in a luminescent blue and the loosely suggested curtain in the background set the stage for a still life by Corinth that displays the utmost mastery of painting. Although a delicate element of unpretentious naturalness still seems to be embodied in the little bouquet of ox-eye daisies, the opulent composition with a pineapple and pomegranates allows us to recognise the commencement of the painter's theatrical still lifes, which form the undisputed highlight of his painting in the 1910s and 1920s.